Nine months after Libya's rebellion began, Muammar Qaddafi was captured, wounded, and then died from his injuries as he tried to flee his hometown of Sirte today, an official from the country's National Transitional Council told Reuters. The former Libyan dictator was in a convoy that was attacked by NATO warplanes, and suffered wounds to the head and both legs, according to National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta. In addition to Qaddafi, the strike took the life of Abu Bakr Younus Jabr, the head of the ex-leader's armed forces. (via)

The Taurunga oil spill off the coast of New Zealand unleashed 2,500 barrels of heavy fuel into a fragile ecosystem, coating thousands of local seabirds in oil. This puts many of them — particularly the mind-meltingly adorable Little Blue Penguin — at serious risk of freezing and/or being poisoned to death.
...A call put out by Grist.org asks for the world to send in penguin sweaters, which will keep them warm and prevent them from preening and swallowing the toxic oil on their feathers until workers can remove it. A decade ago, a similar incident in the region asked for "penguin jumpers," and many Little Blues have already been outfitted from whatever stockpiles were left over. (via)